The Fallen Prince

grows until it burns against my heart.

My lashes wipe the flames away for a second and then they pop back, dancing wildly. Sharp, brutal images flash in my mind. I don’t recognize them as my own. I grit my teeth. My heart pounds. Anger floods my gut and the fire brightens.

Water strikes my feet. A sharp sizzle sounds as the flames lick at the water, turning it into steam. I see Wyatt lumber forward in his suit. I can’t hear what he’s saying; only the seductive hiss of fire is in my ears…and it wants to be free.

Wyatt tosses one of those silver fireproof blankets over me. I flare, turning the blanket into ash. As the gray flakes spiral away, I see flames skittering overhead and Grandpa chasing them with water. No matter what he does, the fire crawls along the ground and ripples up the walls. The hay bales behind Wyatt smoke. Soon flames finger their way through the feed.

A hacking cough erupts from Grandpa as the thick, dark smoke builds, curling upward as it presses down. Wyatt pushes him toward the door and takes up the hose. He blasts me with water, thinking he can put out the flames. At first it seems to work. The flames recede. Steam rushes into the air, building a wall around me. For a second I remember who I am, but the fire is insistent and flashes along my skin again. “Get out!” I cry before it engulfs me completely.

Wyatt sprays me again. This time the fire refuses to die. All around us the building has become a living beast of flame. He tosses the hose down and runs for the door. I can feel the power rushing into my body, the fire curling back on itself like a lung filling with air. There’s no way I can stop it. Suddenly, my body arches. Fire bursts from me, rocking the building, tearing it from its foundation and blasting the structure into the air. The power of the explosion rockets the debris high into the sky before it whizzes to the ground like fiery missiles.

When the smoke clears, I’m no longer burning. I’m standing on a ragged piece of charred wood, but not for long. Gravity shifts, and I fall to my knees. My head spins, and as my vision tunnels, I see Grandpa and Wyatt rush toward me.

“You’re okay,” I manage to say, and then I tip forward as the world goes black.

Trust Is a Fragile Thing

The haze sucks me into a dream, something I’ve tried to avoid since the disturbing ones I had before I was released from the hospital. I’m standing in a darkly lit room. The faint shadow of a low bed stretches out near one wall. Closer to me is a small rickety table with basin and pitcher. The stone walls are slick. Water drips. The colors, all grays and browns and blacks, blink dully in the dim light. I hear the flutter of wings, and I whip around. “Who’s there?”

Nothing comes forward. My dreams always carry a sliver of fuzzy truth, and I struggle to find what’s real and what isn’t. The room shudders, as if the walls are taking a deep breath.

It’s odd for me to be alone in a dream. I take a step forward, and immediately get jerked to a stop. Chains fold over my chest, drag to the floor, wrap around my ankles, and slither off into the darkened corners. I shrug, feeling their weight pressing down on me.

I don’t know what they’re made of. Not iron. Whatever it is, the metal has its own power. Keeping me still. Weighing me down. Depressing me in a way that makes me want to curl up and never move again.

I fight the feeling and struggle to be free. The chains cut into my skin.

“The more you fight, the tighter they become,” sounds a deep voice.

I twirl around, and from out of the darkness emerges the man who haunted my dreams when I was in the hospital. Like before, his clothes are tattered, his hair shaggy. Inky crescents mar the skin beneath his eyes. The starved line to his jaw makes hunger gnaw at my own belly.

“Dylan. Do you know who I am?”

Only because Kera told me. “The Lost King.”

Baun. My father. Though I don’t feel any familial warmth toward him.

“Very good.” His lips tilt into a half smile, though his eyes remain dull. “I know all about you.”

Something isn’t right. My skin itches and my head feels soft. I have to concentrate in order to understand everything he’s saying.

His own chains clatter as he moves closer. “About now, you should be feeling the strain of your added powers.”

His face swims in front of mine, distorted like the image in a funhouse mirror. My stomach clenches, and I force myself not to bend over in pain. “What’s wrong with me? I’ve never felt like this before.”

Every time I visited Kera in our dream world, I’d felt invincible.

Baun moves closer. I try to step back, but the chains keep me still. He stops. “When you defeated Navar, you absorbed his powers, including those he stole from me.” He raises his hand, and the surge of power trying to escape my body sends me to my knees, gasping for breath. His fingers glow softly and he breathes deeply as if savoring a top-cut steak.

I groan, and he suddenly steps back. “My powers want to return to their rightful owner, but they can’t.”

He closes his eyes, murmurs something, and then opens his eyes. “Better?”

The strange feelings slowly dissipate. I nod.

“Do you know why I’ve brought you here, into my dreams?”

“You said before that I have something you want.” It didn’t take the collective effort of a bunch of astrophysicists to know what he meant. He wants his powers back.

The chains chink together as he walks around the tiny room, an eerie musical score to his movements. They don’t appear to weigh him down like they do me, but then again, he’s worn his chains for nearly as long as I’ve lived while I’ve had mine on for only a few minutes.

“Imagine yourself carrying my chains not for a day, but for years. More years than you can remember. Imagine how desperate you’d become.” A strange light burns behind his eyes. “Slightly mad even.”

The intensity rolling off of him is a little unsettling, and I mutter, “From what I hear, you weren’t all that stable to begin with.”

The light burns brighter behind his eyes. “I had vision. A hope for something better.” His voice softens. “Yet a man learns his flaws when he has nothing but time to contemplate what chains him.”

Bad guy learns lesson. “Yay for rehabilitation.” I shrug. “What do you want from me?”

“My freedom.”

I look down at the chains holding me still and then back at him. “Does it look like I can help you?”

“The pux sense the part of me that’s in you, thus the chains. Their weight is only a ghost of what I carry.”

“Great.” Like that explains everything, and if that’s true, how the hell can he move? “Look, I don’t know what delusional state you’re under, but I can’t help you.”

A tic appears in his jaw. “You can.”

So, all those years, he didn’t have any need to contact me, until now, when he needs help…and he’s desperate for it by the look of him.

I laugh. “Why should I? I haven’t heard one good thing about you.”

He’s in front of me before my next blink. A tall, angry, desperate man. Nothing good ever comes from that combination.

“Do you know what the pux do?” He rakes up what’s left of his sleeve and thrusts his arm under my nose. A series of deep wounds, some new, many old, track up and down his skin. He bends near; his mouth twists in disgust. “They’re evil little fiends that take pleasure in others’ pain. They feed off emotion. Extreme feelings are the sugar coating that makes their pathetic lives livable.”

The sound of wings fluttering outside the door catches our attention. He takes a deep breath and calms himself. “I’ve learned to mold my emotions into a bland existence. It’s how I’ve survived this long.” Tears shimmer in his eyes, and he blinks them away. “I’m about to break, Dylan. Death is seducing me toward the peace I crave.”